


Legend But Not Spirit

by GretchenSinister



Category: Doctor Who, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-25 00:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20714873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Another Doctor Who crossover! Except not about the Doctor.I want to see the Guardians in the world without stars, at the end of season five with the whole exploding universe. Are all the Guardians there, if you go with some of their back stories? Do they know something’s wrong? Does Manny?What does North think of Amelia Pond’s request about her wall?BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY I want to see The Lone Centurion and Jack Frost meeting. Because really, when you meet the Doctor, it’s hard to not be willing to believe things. Plus, you know, freaky existence.I just want to see Rory and Jack meeting at this time. The two immortals who died protecting people and came back in new bodies. And being so very lonely, if for different reasons.BonusSo Rory’s a legend. What do the other spirits think of him? Have any met him? Has Manny talked to him?How about Pitch?Rory is plastic, Jack is cold, potential for hilarity or heart warming...[cut for length]"I’m not qualified to write a fill for this! But I did anyway! Thus we have: Jack trying to interact with the Centurion, but there are problems, because while he’s a legend, he’s not a spirit.





	Legend But Not Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 3/23/2016.
> 
> Here's the rest of the prompt: "...Rory unsuccessfully stayed out of trouble. Jack is a part of why.
> 
> Super extra special bonus  
Captain Jack, Jack Frost, and The Lone Centurion walk into a bar… (or just meet.)  
Rory meets Jack after the universe was fixed. This could be either heartwarming, bittersweet, or heartbreaking (especially as Rory has been forgotten before.)"

He wasn’t a spirit. That was the frustrating thing about it. The Centurion was easy to find, but could Jack talk to him? No.  
  
At first Jack thought the Centurion was simply colossally rude. A lot of spirits had been rude to Jack in various ways, and Jack had been rude to a lot of spirits in various ways, so when the Centurion didn’t respond to anything he said, he first thought he was ignoring him. Then, just to test things, and because not being acknowledged at all always made him nervous that he was disappearing to spirits as well as humans, he’d reached out and touched the Centurion’s arm. He hadn’t passed through, but the Centurion didn’t feel like he was made of any kind of flesh Jack had ever heard of.  
  
And he didn’t react to being touched, at all. Now, that was even stranger than the unnatural hardness of his arm. The Centurion had to have seen him, right? He had to have felt Jack’s touch. And yet he was acting like any other human who would walk through Jack.  
  
Maybe he just had really good facial control, and was really determined to ignore Jack. Jack decided he was going to make that a problem, until he got some response. He planted himself in the Centurion’s path, ready to keep blocking him, and, if he kept walking forward and ignoring him, to dig his heels in and stop him from moving at all.  
  
But when Jack stood in front of him, the Centurion stopped. Jack almost was willing to call this a victory, but when he looked at the Centurion’s face he saw that he seemed genuinely puzzled about something. Puzzled as to why he had stopped? Jack got out of the way, and the Centurion continued on his way. Jack blocked him again. He stopped. After a little while, Jack left off getting in the Centurion’s way. It was clear enough. The Centurion really couldn’t see him or hear him, even if Jack could touch him and there was something that prevented him from walking into Jack’s space.  
  
But how? And why? The Centurion was a legend, as much as any other spirit, and all of them could see Jack, even if sometimes they didn’t particularly want to.  
  
Jack had time to solve a mystery, so he decided to follow the Centurion for a while.  
  
He saw the Centurion interact with people that Jack made sure—shudderingly sure—that he could walk through. He saw that those people didn’t recognize the Centurion as other than human. And that was strange, too. Jack had seen spirits interact with their believers before, and the believers always knew they were in the presence of someone extraordinary.  
  
What did it mean? Jack came up with a guess, which he expounded on to the Centurion. Jack could touch him because he was a legend, but the Centurion couldn’t see him because he was, somehow, at the same time, not a legend at all. Somehow, despite being someone that other people referred to as an old story; somehow, despite the fact that spirits could touch him and despite the bizarre hardness of his body, he was, in some sense, just like the other mortal human beings around him. How he had changed and why he had changed—Jack came up with many guesses for this, each more outlandish than the next. Jack had come up with a lot of stories over the years, and this was much the same sort of thing.  
  
Eventually, however, it became clear that the Centurion was not growing more likely to hear or see Jack. He couldn’t confirm or deny any of Jack’s guesses. And that…even time around someone who both bent the grass under his feet and couldn’t walk through Jack didn’t quite make up for that.

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> #the wiki saved my bacon here
> 
> mira-eyeteeth said: Oh, my poor lonely frost child.


End file.
